


Sorrow and Dream

by the_random_writer



Series: Separated Twins [11]
Category: Bourne (Movies), RED (Movies), The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
Genre: Art, Brothers, Childhood Memories, Childhood Trauma, Crossover, Family Issues, Family Secrets, Gen, Switzerland, Twins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 09:24:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11483463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_random_writer/pseuds/the_random_writer
Summary: A crossover where William Cooper from 'RED' and Kirill from 'The Bourne Supremacy' are identical twins.Born in Berlin to an American mother and a Russian father, the twins were separated at the age of ten by their parents' divorce. William went to the United States with their mother, while Kirill went to the Soviet Union with their father.William and Kirill go on a trip to see some of their mother's art.Takes place in early November 2010.





	Sorrow and Dream

"So, what do you think?" William asked, gesturing at the massive canvas hanging on the gallery wall.

Kirill frowned, crossed his arms and leaned back against the bench. The canvas was a riot of colour, but unlike the one they'd looked at this morning, not in a joyful way. It was dark and violent and rough and crude, full of bitterness and rage. "I am not sure," he eventually said. "I think it is technically better than the last one, but I am struggling to understand what it means."

William shrugged. "It's modern art," he pointed out. "Why do you need to know what it means?"

"Because art should always have meaning, Viko. If it does not mean something, it is a waste of time."

"I'll bow to your superior judgement on that one. I wouldn't know what art should do if my career and life depended on it. I've always assumed it should just be pleasant to look at."

"This piece of art is not pleasant to look at."

"No, it's not," William agreed.

"It is extremely disturbing," Kirill went on. "It reminds me of a Goya work I saw a few years ago in Spain."

"Mike hates it. Says it gives her nightmares. Refuses to have it in the house."

"What about you? Do you like it?"

Another shrug. "Don't hate it as much as Mike, but it's not my favourite piece of artwork, either. Certainly don't like it enough to fall out with my wife about it."

Kirill smiled. William was nothing if not a solicitous and considerate spouse. "Is that why you agreed to let the gallery have it?" he asked. "So you did not have to worry about where it would go?"

"That, and the fact mom once told me she thought it was the best piece she'd ever produced, so I figured it should be out on display where other people could appreciate it."

"Even if it gives them nightmares?"

William smirked. "Even if it gives them nightmares, yes."

Kirill scanned the canvas again, trying to decipher the splashes and swirls. "I think mama must have been extremely angry when she made this," he said.

"She was, yeah."

"The style is so different from the painting we looked at this morning, and from the one you have on your living room wall, I actually had trouble believing it was one of hers. When you brought me in here and pointed it out, I thought you were pulling my leg."

"She painted the other two in Berlin, before the family fell apart. The divorce changed her. Made her harsher, harder, much less forgiving."

"It also made her a better artist."

William's eyebrows shot up. "You think?"

Kirill gave an emphatic nod. "When I compare this piece to the painting on your living room wall, absolutely. This one may not be as pleasant to look at, but it has much, much more to say."

"I thought you didn't know what it means," William complained in a slightly accusatory tone.

"I _don't_ know what it means. But unlike the painting on your living room wall, this one is challenging me to find out. It makes me wonder what mama wanted us to think, what message she was trying to tell us."

"Pretty sure the only thing she was trying to tell us was how pissed off she was at the world."

"At the world, yes, but especially at our father."

"She wasn't the only one," William replied. "Went through a really long phase of not liking him very much myself."

"You see the figure in the top corner?" Kirill asked, pointing up and to the left. "I think it is supposed to be papa."

Eyebrows shot up again. "Really?"

"Yes."

William wrinkled his nose. "But he's eating a _baby_."

"Or, if you think about it another way, he is consuming a child," Kirill quietly explained.

"And the child he's consuming is you," William concluded, just as quietly.

Kirill nodded. "From mama's perspective, yes."

"Does that mean the kid down in the other corner with no eyes or mouth is supposed to be me?"

"Probably, yes."

"Jesus," William muttered. "Now it's creeping me out even more."

"Good."

"How is that _good_?"

"Because it means the painting is doing its job."

"What, keeping me awake at night wondering what kind of sick shit was running through my mother's head?"

"It wasn't sick shit, Viko, it was anger and emotional pain. A great deal of it. More than she knew how to cope with in a way we would understand."

"I suppose so, yeah."

"She focused her anger into her art, just as you and I focus our anger into an afternoon at the gym or the range. Artistic therapy for her, ballistic therapy for us. We don't understand her solution, but I doubt she would understand our solution, either."

William nodded, conceding the point, then joined him in leaning against the bench. "I remember how unhappy she was, after we moved back to the States, but she would never talk to me about what happened with you and dad, even when I was in my teens. We had a huge argument about it on my eighteenth birthday. I thought I was finally old enough to hear the full story, but she wouldn't tell me a goddamn thing." There was anger and bitterness in his tone, but hints of guilt and sorrow as well.

"You were her son," Kirill reminded his twin. "And already dealing with emotional problems of your own. She probably didn't want to burden you with hers as well."

"Caused a _lot_ of tension between us. The morning she died, the two of us were barely talking."

"You must regret that."

"Course I do. I was angry with her, but she was still my mom. For all her faults, I still loved her."

"Even if you sometimes hated her as well."

William nodded. "Even if I sometimes hated her as well, yeah." His features settled into a practiced, neutral expression. "Is that how it was with you and dad?" he asked. "Loving and hating him at the same time?"

"More or less," Kirill replied.

More of the hate and less of the love, but that was probably better left unsaid.

William was silent for a few moments, then added, "I think there was more to mom's refusal to talk than just anger and emotional pain."

"Oh?"

"I don't know for sure, but I think there was shame behind it as well."

Now it was Kirill who raised his brows. "What makes you think that?" he asked.

"Something Oma Johanna said the morning after the funeral, while we were going through mom's belongings. Don't think she intended to say it, because she changed the subject when I asked what she meant, and refused to talk about it again."

"What did she say?"

"She implied mom had tried to keep both of us, but had to allow you to go to Moscow with dad, because she'd done something wrong that he knew about and was willing to use against her."

Kirill sighed. "He blackmailed her into giving me up."

It came out as a statement of fact, not as a question or a suggestion—something William quickly perceived. He might not know a lot about art, but he was as sharp as a tack in other ways.

"Did he tell you that?" the older twin asked.

"No, he did not."

"Then, what makes you believe that's what happened?"

"Because I remember what kind of man our father was. Not a bad man as such, but not a terribly good one, either. He could be kind when it suited him, but he could also be selfish and demanding, and he liked to have things his own way. Once he had made up his mind to leave her, he would not have cared about what mama wanted. Or about what _we_ wanted, for that matter. It would all have been about him," Kirill solemnly concluded. And only ever about him, even once they were living in Moscow. Never about his lonely, neglected, brotherless, motherless and eventually fatherless teenage son.

"Did he ever talk to you about the divorce?" William asked. "Or about mom and me?"

"Occasionally, but only to remind me that mama chose to keep you but give me up," Kirill said in a bitter tone.

"That must have been very painful to hear."

"It was," Kirill said. Not that his brother's situation would really have been any better. "It troubled me for many years, even after I knew it wasn't the truth."

William patted him on the knee. "She wasn't a perfect mother by any means, but I'm pretty sure she wouldn't have given you up unless she had no other choice. She never talked about you, but I _know_ she loved you. It's good you were eventually able to figure that out."

"It was, yes."

"How _did_ you figure it out?"

"It was actually quite easy. I only had to read a letter."

"A _letter_?"

"Do you remember our last day together in Berlin? When you and mama left the apartment very early in the morning, and I stayed behind to spend the day with papa instead?"

William nodded. "He'd spent the night on the living room couch, and mom had been crying, so we thought they'd had another fight."

"Do you remember mama writing a letter before she left?"

"No, but that's hardly surprising. I was only ten, and I didn't know I wasn't going to see you again, so I didn't pay a lot of attention to what she was doing."

"It was a goodbye letter," Kirill revealed. "Mostly from mama to papa, but in a way, from mama to me as well."

"What did it say?"

"Not a lot. But the last line said 'when Kirill asks about us, tell him we love him very much, and that he will see both of us again when he is older'."

Even now, after everything that had happened, he still remembered it, word for word.

"She thought the three of us would eventually get back together," William murmured.

"Our father forced her to give me up, but she intended to come find me again as soon as circumstances allowed."

"You _definitely_ have a better memory than me, if you can remember the contents of a letter you read when you were ten."

Kirill shook his head. "I did not read it when I was ten. I found it after papa died, going through his personal belongings, so I read it when I was sixteen."

"He _kept_ the letter?"

"He did," Kirill confirmed. "And I am still trying to figure out why. You would think it meant he still had feelings for mama, but on the few occasions he talked about her, there was never any love in his words."

William snorted. "He spent almost twenty years pretending to be someone and something he wasn't. "His whole life with us in Berlin was a lie. Who the hell knows how he really felt about anyone or anything? By the time he died, he'd probably told so many lies he didn't even know the truth of his own feelings himself."

"There is that, yes."

"Did you keep the letter?" William asked.

"Of course."

For the best part of thirty years, it had been his only connection to his missing mother. Just like his twin, he'd gone through phases of hating and loving her in turn, but he'd never once considered throwing the hastily scribbled note away.

William's shoulders sagged. "But it'll be gone now, along with everything else you left in Moscow. A shame, really. Would've liked to have seen it. It's probably in a sealed box somewhere in the Lubyanka."

"It is not in the Lubyanka."

"Oh?"

"It is in a bank vault in Geneva."

William sat up ramrod straight. "Why the _hell_ is it in a bank vault in Geneva?"

"Because a bank vault in Geneva was the safest place I could think of to put it."

"Are you telling me you have a _Swiss bank account_?"

"Not in the traditional sense, no."

"What about the non-traditional sense?"

"Have you ever heard of the Geneva Safeport?"

"Course I have. It's a secure storage facility in the southwest end of the city, not far from the border with France. It's supposed to be respectable, but anyone with half a brain knows it's where high-end thieves and crooked rich people hide all of their ill-gotten gains. You rent a space, store whatever you want in it, no questions asked, privacy and confidentiality guaranteed. Even the Swiss authorities mostly look the other way. Nigel thinks it's full of guns, money and stolen art."

Kirill smirked. From what he'd seen of the warehouse during his visits, Nigel was probably right. "Seven years ago, while I was still working for the SVR, the higher-ups sent me to Geneva to deal with a problem that was bothering some members of the Rezidentura. While I was there, I rented one of the Safeport's smallest spaces."

"What'd you put in it?"

"It was a very small unit, about the same size as your laundry cupboard, so not much. A Hublot watch I received as a thank you for a job. A painting I stole from a British journalist's apartment in Strogino as part of a _zersetzung_ campaign. A bottle of 1982 Chateau Margaux I took from a restaurant owner as a bribe. A couple of guns, a case full of money. But mostly items of personal value."

"How'd you move it all out of Russia?"

"Very carefully, sometimes through not entirely legal channels."

"Why'd you use it for personal stuff? The other things I can understand, but surely personal items wouldn't be worth the trouble of hiding?"

"Because I wanted to be ready for the worst."

William sighed and leaned back again. "You mean being disavowed for doing something wrong, having to walk away from your old life, change your identity and go on the run."

"Perhaps at a moment's notice, with no chance to stop and collect important belongings," Kirill concluded.

He wondered if his brother had an exit plan of his own. But walking away and going on the run was hard enough as a single man. He didn't want to think about how good a plan would have to be to also cover a wife and two kids.

"So, you stored the items at the Safeport to ensure you would always have access to them," William said.

"Yes."

"What kind of personal items are we talking about here?"

"Mostly Orlov family mementos. Photos of various ancestors and relations. Birth, marriage and death certificates. Trinkets, wedding rings and medals. Items I knew I would never need on a day-to-day basis, but did not want to lose."

"That's a collection of stuff I'd love to see. I've got some mementos from the Cooper side, but I barely know anything at all about the Orlovs, other than our grandparents' names."

"Then we should think about taking a trip to Geneva."

"Visited Switzerland once, back when I was stationed in Vienna, but I only went to Zurich. Never made it down to the French end."

"I actually prefer Geneva. The food and the climate are better, and the people are not quite as reserved."

"When were you last there?"

"Last autumn, just before the business in Goa with Bourne. Before that, I usually visited once per year."

"Did you tell anyone in Russia about it?"

"No, and I was always extremely careful with my visits. I took enormous pains to cover my tracks. The SDRs I used were so good, even you would not have been able to find me."

William wisely ignored the jibe. "So the SVR and the FSB shouldn't know anything about it."

"No."

"Which means it _should_ be safe for you to go pick everything up."

"It should, yes."

" _Could_ you go pick everything up, though?" William asked. "You're still Kirill Orlov, but you're not the Kirill Orlov you used to be. If you have to show them your Russian passport, you'll be up shit creek."

Kirill shook his head. "The security is all biometric. As long as I know my account number, which I do, and my fingerprints have not changed, it should not be a problem."

"That's convenient."

"It is one of the reasons I chose the Safeport in the first place. I did not want to have to rely on identity or security documents I might lose access to or have to destroy."

William frowned. "If they don't know who you really are, how do they get in touch with you?"

"They don't."

"So, what happens if there's a problem with your storage unit?"

"What kind of problem would there be?"

"What happens if there's a fire? Or a flood? Or a plane crashes into the building?"

Kirill tried not to roll his eyes. "Then there will be nothing to contact me about, because all of my belongings will have been destroyed." And if any of those things actually happened, the Safeport's owners would have bigger problems to worry about than a box of documents and medals.

"If you're legally dead, how do you pay the rental fees?"

"I leased the room in five year blocks and paid all of the fees in advance."

"That was smart."

Kirill huffed. "It was my idea. Of course it was." Not to mention extremely expensive.

"So you last renewed the lease two years ago?"

"In September 2008, yes."

"Which means we have almost three years to figure out what to do. Although, I'm sure you'd rather not wait that long to wrap it all up."

"No, I would not. I would like to retrieve my belongings as soon as possible. But I will have to wait until the spring at least."

"Until your probationary period's over, right."

"And even once it is over, I should probably wait a few months more before I travel back to Europe. I have to behave myself, and going to Geneva would likely put my guard dogs on edge."

"What if we all went there together? You, me, Mike, Kate and the kids? Make it a family vacation, then the two of us head to the Safeport while everyone else is taking a cruise on the lake?"

"That could work."

"You might not be able to bring everything home," the older brother warned. "Letters, photos and medals can all go in your carry-on luggage, but the guns and money might have to stay where they are."

Kirill shrugged. "The guns and money are not important."

"How much money are we talking about anyway?"

"Maybe three hundred thousand dollars in cash? Plus some gold coins and some uncut diamonds."

"Do I even _want_ to know where the coins and diamonds came from?"

"No, you do not."

"That's a fair chunk of cash, you know. Enough to cover a down payment on a decent house. You sure you want to give it all up?"

"I had thought I could give it to the CIA, and that the CIA could give it to the families of Eric Schroeder and Daniel Manning."

The two men he'd killed in Berlin, almost exactly a year ago.

"That's a nice thought. But it would mean admitting you didn't tell the Company everything at your review back in February. And that might cause you _way_ more trouble than it's worth."

"That had occurred to me, yes."

"Why _didn't_ you talk about it at the review?"

"At the time, I didn't think it was important. It wasn't until a month or so later that I realized I should probably have revealed its existence."

"And you figured by then it was easier to go on keeping your mouth shut."

Kirill nodded. "Are you annoyed about that?"

"Not really, no. Sometimes honesty is the best policy, but sometimes it's better to keep things to yourself."

"Yes, it is."

"What about the stolen painting?" William asked. "What the hell would you do with that?"

"I could leave it at the British consulate or a government building with a letter taped to the frame, asking them to return it to the rightful owner."

"You don't want to keep it?"

Kirill wrinkled his nose. "It is a derivative and inferior work, so no, I don't."

"My brother, the art critic."

"One of us had to inherit our mother's talents, and it is certainly not you."

"Always been more of a writer than a painter myself."

"Like papa."

William huffed. "He just pretended to be a writer."

"No, he actually _was_ a writer," Kirill corrected. "Just as much as mama was a painter."

"The hell did he ever write?"

"A book of short stories and three full novels."

"You're shitting me."

"I am not."

"Were they ever published?"

"He told me had an enquiry about one of the novels, just before he moved back to Moscow, but that nothing ever came of it."

"Then there are no surviving copies."

"There are."

"Where?"

"I have the original manuscripts. Pages our father typed or wrote while he was living in Berlin, and carried back to Moscow with him."

William blew out a knowing sigh. "They're in Geneva as well, aren't they?"

"Yes."

"Another reason to go for a visit."

A movement at the side of the room drew Kirill's attention away from the conversation. A dark-haired woman in a suit was making a beeline for their bench. As she approached, she smiled broadly, held out a welcoming hand and said, "Mister Cooper, how lovely to see you again!"

William hauled himself to his feet and gave the hand a hearty shake. "Anna, isn't it?" he asked with a sheepish smile. "Sorry, it's been a few years, and I don't have the best memory for names."

The woman returned the grin. "Yes, it's Anna," she confirmed. "Anna Oberg."

"Anna, this is my brother, Kirill," William said, turning to introduce his twin. "Kirill, this is Anna. She's the Assistant Director of the gallery."

"Director," Anna corrected, holding out her hand again. "Adnan took a job in San Diego last year, so the gallery's my baby now."

"Nice to meet you," Kirill said, briefly gripping and shaking her hand.

"I didn't know you had a twin brother," Anna said.

William sighed. "I didn't back when we first met, but I do now." He smiled softly. "Long story, don't ask."

Anna's next sentence was to Kirill. "You came to see your mother's painting."

The Russian nodded. "We are doing a tour of her major works. This is our second stop. When we are finished here, we will drive up to Wilmington to see another painting there."

"So, what do you think of _Sorrow and Dream_?" she asked, nodding at the opposite wall.

"I am not sure," Kirill replied, sticking with his initial response. "It is technically very good, but the content is extremely disturbing."

Anna laughed. "That's a very diplomatic way to put it."

"What do other visitors think?"

She tilted her hand back and forth. "It's a mixed bag. Some people love it, but most people think it's horrible. But they all stop to look, and they all have an opinion. It's a painting that's very hard to ignore."

"Then as a work of art, it is doing its job."

"Exactly."

"I like the space you have put it in," Kirill said, gesturing around the room. "You have not made the mistake of cramming it into an awkward corner."

"It's one of our most important pieces," Anna revealed. "And one of our largest as well. We'd be doing it a terrible disservice if we crammed it into an awkward corner." She turned to William again. "I was surprised when I saw you sitting here, because I had actually been meaning to give you a call."

"Oh, yeah? What about?"

"About the painting."

William frowned. "Is there a problem with it?"

"Oh, no, not at all," Anna hastily said. "We'd obviously love to own it outright, and we'd buy it from you in a heartbeat, but we also know you don't want to let it go, so we're happy to have it on permanent loan."

"Then what's up?"

"A couple of weeks ago, a man came through the gallery. A very rich man. He came to see me at the end of his tour, told me he absolutely loved the painting and asked if we were willing to sell it. I told him we didn't actually own it, but I would contact the owner and pass his enquiry along."

"I'm not really interested in selling it," William said, then looked to his brother. "Don't imagine you are, either."

Kirill shook his head. "Mama would want her art to be out on view for people to see. She would not want it hidden away in some rich man's house."

"He was willing to pay a _very_ good price," Anna added. " _Well_ over market value, and far more than we could ever afford to pay."

"Where was he from?" William asked.

Smiling slightly, Anna shifted her gaze to Kirill. "From Moscow, of all places," she said.

So she'd picked up on where he was from, or was at least making an educated guess.

"Let me guess, an oligarch with more money than sense?" Kirill said. Sadly, a breed he knew all too well.

"One of their new billionaires, yes. We've had people like him come through before. They make their fortune, then go on a shopping spree, try to buy up as much culture as they can." She harrumphed slightly. "They _can_ be quite difficult to deal with. They don't seem to like it when people say 'no'."

"And 'no' is definitely what I'm gonna say," was William's surly response. "Moscow's already taken most of my family from me. I'm not gonna let it have my mother's artwork as well."

Anna nodded. "Of course," she said, looking slightly confused. "I'll give him a call tomorrow, let him know you're not interested in selling."

William's expression softened. "Thank you. And I'll actually be in touch again in the next few weeks. I want to update the loan agreement, have Kirill added as a co-owner of the painting."

Another nod. "I'll let our legal team know to expect your call. Shouldn't take too much work to add another name to the contract."

"My wife's gonna handle it on our side, so the call will either come from her, or one of the partners at her firm."

Anna changed the subject. "You said you're heading up to Wilmington from here?"

"To check out _Harmony of Light_ , yes," William replied.

"It's a beautiful painting," she said to Kirill. "Technically, not as good as this one, but much more pleasant to look at. I think you'll like it."

"I'm sure I will. But I think I rather like this one as well. It is not pleasant to look at, but that does not mean it is not beautiful in its own way."

"As someone smarter than me once said, 'All profoundly original art looks ugly at first'."

"Oscar Wilde?" William guessed.

Anna shook her head. "Clement Greenberg. Mid-twentieth century art critic. Big fan of abstract expressionism. One of the first to get behind Jackson Pollock."

"You think he'd have liked this?" William asked, jerking his chin at _Sorrow and Dream_.

"Hmm, not sure," Anna said with a frown. "Maybe, maybe not. Might be a bit too post-modernist for his tastes."

William's phone started to beep.

"That'll probably be Mike and Kate," he murmured to Anna as he wrangled the Blackberry out of his pocket. "My wife and her sister," he quickly explained. "We're having a family day out as well as a gallery tour, but the kids are only five and eight, so they're not quite old enough for an afternoon of modern art."

"Not even modern art their grandmother made?"

"The pretty stuff, maybe. This one would give probably them both nightmares for months."

"There is that, yes. Might be best to a wait a few years, then. Come back when they're old enough to understand what the painting means."

"What _does_ it mean?" William asked.

The dark-haired director laughed again. "Mister Cooper, I could tell you my theories, but at the end of the day, I _honestly_ have no idea."

Across the room, a young man wearing a name badge coughed and gave Anna an awkward wave.

"I think one of your staff members needs you," Kirill advised.

Anna looked round, acknowledged the wave, then turned back to her guests and said, "That's Kevin from our fundraising team. He probably needs my help with a phone call or some correspondence." She extended her hand a final time. "It's been lovely chatting with both of you, but duty calls. A director's work is never done."

"We'll talk again soon," William said.

"Yes, we will. Thank you for stopping by, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your day."

She turned on her heels and bustled away.

William took a few seconds to look at his phone, then pointed them towards the door. "Ready to go when you are," he said. "Unless there's anything else you want to see?"

"I came to see mama's painting, and now I have seen it, so I am also ready to leave."

"You wanna stop in the gallery store and buy a print for your living room wall?"

Kirill smiled and shook his head. "Where are we meeting the rest of the gang?" he asked.

"Mike said she'll pick us up in five minutes at the same corner where she dropped us off."

As they made their way out of the building, Kirill shared a thought with his twin. "You said the painting would give Tania and Drusha nightmares, but I think Tania would actually like it."

"She's only five, Kir. And it's a painting of someone eating a baby. Not exactly _Scooby Doo_ or _My Little Pony_."

"Did you know she asked me to buy her a tarantula for her birthday?" Kirill breezily enquired, knowing his niece was nowhere near as sensitive as her father assumed.

William shuddered slightly. "Yeah, I did. And you are absolutely _not_ buying her one, under _any_ circumstances. "

"Please tell me you are not scared of spiders?"

"What the hell's wrong with being scared of spiders?"

"You used to be a marine. You shouldn't be scared of anything, except maybe getting shot and MREs."

"Says the man who's afraid of clowns."

"Clowns are very suspicious and sinister creatures."

"So are spiders!"

The younger twin scrunched his nose and made a dismissive sound. When had his battle-hardened brother turned into such a tender man?

"Don't you wrinkle that delicate Russian nose at me," the tender man in question warned.

"Or what?"

"Or I'm gonna have to teach your no good, insolent, Russian ass a lesson it'll never forget."

Kirill simply sneered.

A parp from a Dodge Caravan horn cut their squabble off at the knees. Roughly fifty feet away, a window rolled down and Catherine McNally's head appeared. "Hey!" she hollered at them. "You numbnuts gonna come get in the car, or are you gonna stand on that sidewalk yakking all day?"

They grinned at each other and made their way across to the car. William took the passenger seat, leaning over as he fastened his belt to give his wife a welcoming kiss. Kirill did the same with Kate as he clambered into the back row.

Michelle pushed her turn signal on, paused for a moment, then steered the car away from the curb and moved into the centre lane. "So, Kirill, what did you think of _Sorrow and Dream_?" she asked, addressing him in the rear-view mirror.

"I actually liked it," Kirill replied. "Dark and disturbing, but strangely beautiful at the same time."

His sister-in-law wasn't impressed. "We'll have to agree to disagree there," she said. "I'm sure your mom was a wonderful woman, but to say that painting's dark and disturbing's the understatement of the year."

William turned to check on his kids, strapped into their booster seats in the second row. "How was the aquarium?" he asked. "You guys have a good time checking out the fish and the sharks?"

Andrew nodded enthusiastically. "They let us feed the dolphins."

"That must have been fun," his father approvingly said.

"Can I have a dolphin for my birthday?" Tatiana wanted to know.

Behind her in the back row of seats, Catherine laughed while Kirill let out a gentle huff. "I thought you wanted a tarantula," he said, feeling slightly offended by his niece's sudden change of heart.

"That was yesterday," Tatiana declared, in a way that only a five-year-old could. " _Now_ I want a dolphin."

Michelle shook her head. "Sorry, cupcake, no dolphin."

"And no tarantula, either," William grumbled at his wife. "Unless it's the Lego or plushy kind."

"My husband, the former marine. Terrified of a little spider."

"Tarantula's are _not_ little. If you'd seen the one I found in my room when I was stationed in Peru, you wouldn't like the bloody things, either." He shuddered again. "Biggest spider I've ever seen. Was like something out of _Lord of the Rings_."

Michelle grinned, but simply said, "So north from here, is that the plan?"

"To Wilmington," her husband confirmed. "To see _Harmony of Light_."

"Traffic doesn't look too bad, so it shouldn't take us too long to get there. And we can all go have a look at this one. It's a really pretty painting. No half-eaten babies or kids with no eyes."

Kirill decided to keep his theory about who the baby and eyeless child were very firmly to himself. Michelle wouldn't care to know, and wouldn't decide to love the painting just because her husband was in it.

"The admission price for this next place is pretty cheap, and the kids'll get in for free, so it doesn't matter if we don't visit for long," William pointed out. "We can pop in, look at the painting, come straight back out if we want. By the time we're done, we'll probably all be ready to eat."

Two rows away, Kirill let out a quiet snort. What that statement really meant was that _William_ would be ready to eat. He was surprised his brother had lasted this long without so much as a packet of nuts to keep him going.

Michelle manoeuvered across two lanes of traffic, heading onto the freeway ramp. Once she had safely merged, she said, "We should come back out this way again in the summer. I picked up a leaflet for a new water park that's supposed to open up in May. Could be a fun place to go with the kids."

"You gonna have another summer at home?" Catherine asked, knowing the Coopers hadn't managed to go for a proper vacation the year before, mostly because of Kirill's arrival, but also because Michelle had just gone back to work, and hadn't been able to take a lot of time off.

William turned to raise an eyebrow at his twin.

Kirill smiled and nodded very slightly, agreeing to his brother's plan.

"I actually had a better idea," William told his wife.

"Oh, yeah? What's that?"

"We haven't been to Europe since before Tatiana was born."

"Europe?" Michelle repeated.

"I haven't been to Europe since the year we all went with mom and dad," Catherine put in. "Would love to go back to Paris and Rome, revisit all the places I barely noticed the first time around because I was too busy flirting with the local men."

Kirill furrowed his brows. "I am trying to imagine you as a teenager, flirting with French and Italian men."

"Don't," Michelle warned, shaking her head. "It wasn't a pretty sight. Just be glad she's much better at flirting now than she was sixteen years ago."

"Like your chat up lines were any better," Catherine muttered at her sister.

"At least I tried to be classy about it. I never resorted to making terrible puns about baguettes."

"I was sixteen!"

"So, Europe," William curtly announced, dragging them back to the topic at hand.

Kirill grinned. The Orlovs weren't the only siblings in the car who knew how to pick a ridiculous fight. Although, Michelle and Catherine usually didn't wrap up their squabbles by trying to tackle each other around the knees.

Michelle nodded. "Europe, yes. Where were you thinking? I've been to Paris, and we've both been to Rome, although not together, so how about Spain? I hear Madrid's beautiful in early autumn, or we could give Barcelona a try, see some museums and churches, then spend some lazy days at the beach?"

William took a breath. "I was actually thinking of somewhere slightly further inland."

"Where's that?" Michelle asked.

"How would you feel about going to Geneva instead?


End file.
